


Broken

by Sherctorrunning23



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: After the lying detective, Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, John Watson - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock First kiss, M/M, Pining Sherlock, Rewritten Scene, Sad, Set after 4.02, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, SherlockxJohn, cannon(ish), sherlock/john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 14:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherctorrunning23/pseuds/Sherctorrunning23
Summary: John Watson deserves happiness.





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the events of the lying detective- that bit where John confesses to cheating on Mary, but rewritten.

Silence.

There’s nothing to say, not now. Less to say than there was before, when he hadn’t seen the video, when he hadn’t come to his rescue, when they’d been broken and unfixable. Less to say than there ever has before, but maybe more, as well, because Sherlock can’t help but feel that John wants to say something-

‘I’ve got to go. Rosie.’

Or not. Sherlock nods, though, because that’s what he has to do. Let John do what he needs to do, let John go where he needs to go-

Let John go. Full stop, end of sentence, end of friendship, end of life together. He _needs to let John go._

‘Course,’ he says, when John doesn’t stand up. ‘Yeah. Course.’

‘I’m tomorrow. Six till ten.’ He’d forgotten about the rota, until John said that, but now he remembers. _He’s only here because he doesn’t want me to die. He’s only here because he needs me to live._ ‘Right. Yeah. Tomorrow.’

John stands up, and Sherlock prepares to watch him walk away. Again. Walk away with that broken face, that broken heart, that broken family, and suddenly, he feels angry, angry at how he feels and how John feels and at Mary, _fucking Mary,_ who should never have saved his life with her own. She should have lived, she should have stayed, because Sherlock knows that the only thing worse than seeing John with someone else is seeing John heartbroken.

He’s gotten so good at hiding his feelings, because that’s what love is: wanting the other person to be happy, even if it’s not with you. And even if he didn’t love John more than he loved himself and his brother and rainy days and everything else that made life worth living, he would still go to his grave insisting that _John Watson deserves happiness._

But now every part of John is broken, and Sherlock can see it so clearly that it almost kills him to look. So he doesn’t look- he stares straight ahead, at the chair that used to be John’s, and thinks about Culverton Smith and suffocation and, Christ help him, the drugs, the drugs that he went on because Mary told him to and the drugs that could have, would have, should have killed him. He thinks about James Moriarty, and Faith Smith, and the feeling of falling.  He thinks about the mess he’s made of everything, he thinks about a dead dog at the seaside, and he thinks about the light that he actually _saw_ leave Mary’s eyes as her life bled out in an aquarium-

‘She was wrong about me.’

Sherlock’s head jerks up, and he sees his broken-John leaning against the door frame. ‘Mary? How so?’

John takes a step forwards, until he’s standing in the middle of the room, his eyes constantly drifting to Sherlock’s left, as they’ve been since Mary died. ‘She thought that if you put yourself in harm’s way I’d- I’d rescue you. Or something.’

Sherlock almost smiles. _The knight in shining armour, the princess in the tower_ , he imagines Mycroft sneering. He’s always been a good damsel. ‘Right-‘

‘But I didn’t,’ John interrupts, ‘Not till she told me to. And that’s what you’re missing, Sherlock. She taught me to be the man she already thought I was.’

For the first time in a long time, Sherlock feels that spark of anger, deep in his chest. ‘You’re doing yourself a disservice, John, I can safely say-‘

‘I cheated on her.’

There were exactly fifteen responses that Sherlock had anticipated to John’s reply, but that was not one of them, and he cannot believe he missed it. Had the drugs destroyed his brain? Addled his mind? How had he not deduced that, how had he not seen that in John’s face- or clothes- or hands?

He knows it’s bad, but the first thing he feels is anger. It’s not anger on behalf of Mary, but anger on behalf of himself, on behalf of his feelings, on behalf of all the moments when the timing was perfect but Sherlock was quiet because he thought that he was doing the right thing. _I gave you up to Mary,_ he wants to scream. _I didn’t say a word, and this is how you repay us? How you repay me?_

John can see his shock in his face, he knows he can, because he laughs, a dry, broken laugh from dry, broken lips. ‘Texting. Just texting, but I wanted more.’

He’s not speaking to Sherlock anymore, he’s speaking to Sherlock’s left, and Sherlock’s anger is dying. He _knows_ John. He knows John better than John knows himself, and even if he doesn’t know why John has done this he does know he has no right to judge, and John looks even more broken, if that’s possible. ‘I still want more. I’m not the man you thought I was, but I want to be. God, I want to be.’

Sherlock’s heart contracts as he realises who John is talking to- Mary Morstan, Rosamund Mary, a figure in his mind, a woman he betrayed who saved his best friend’s life. But he’s still silent, utterly silent, and slowly John lowers his head and starts to cry, broken, heaving sobs into his hands as he finally says goodbye to the woman to whom they both owe everything.

Sherlock sets his mug carefully on the table, and then stands up. ‘John.’ And then, the only thing he can think to say, ‘It’s okay.’

It’s not okay. No part of their situation is okay, and both of them know that, but he repeats it over and over as he walks to John, stops in front of John, and then pulls John towards him. ‘It’s okay, John, it’s okay,’ he says, over and over, because he knows how it feels to want forgiveness so badly it tears up your soul. ‘It’s okay.’

John is still crying against his dressing gown, and Sherlock cups his head and carries on talking. ‘It’s okay, John.’

He doesn’t know how long they are standing there, he doesn’t know how long he’s been whispering those same two words, all he knows is that John needs him. ‘It’s okay, John-‘

‘It’s not okay,’ John whispers. ‘It’s not okay.’

‘No,’ Sherlock agrees, and John pulls slightly back from him. Before he can help himself he’s raised his right hand, wiping a tear as it falls from John’s left eye. ‘But it is what it is.’

They’re stuck in a timeless moment, Sherlock’s hand against John’s cheek, standing so closely together that Sherlock can almost imagine that John can hear his racing heart.  And he knows it’s much, much too soon, he knows that John still loves Mary, he knows that John is a widower with an infant and he’s broken, but it feels like the moment his whole life has burnt to. He’s at the end of the matchstick, the last lick of fire eating the wood, and John Watson has eyes that hold the universe.

‘You didn’t need me to save you,’ John murmurs, and Sherlock lets out a shaky breath. ‘We needed to save each other, John.’

It’s John that reaches up, in the end. It’s John that presses his lips to Sherlock’s, and it’s John who burns out Sherlock’s matchstick, blows out the last lick of fire, and consumes his soul with the universe. It’s John who snakes his hands into Sherlock’s hair, pulling him close, desperately kissing him like everything is ending, everything is broken, everything is destroyed, and all that’s left is Sherlock and John in the remains of the lives they’ve built for, with, against each other: the lives they might have had, if Moriarty and Reichenbach and Mary and Magnusson and the aquarium had never happened.

A start and an end, all in one kiss, and as Sherlock pulls away he knows that it will never happen again because they may have been perfect, they may have been infinite, but their paths were never in the same place at the same time. ‘John-‘

John shakes his head, hands still tangled in Sherlock’s hair, and he says in a voice that doesn’t sound quite as broken as it did before, ‘Later.’

And they’re kissing again, although it feels different, now, because John is putting something into the kiss that wasn’t there before. It’s the thought that maybe, just maybe, their paths are crossing _now,_ they’re rebuilding their lives _now,_ the last lick of flame’s been transferred to another matchstick _now._ It’s the thought that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are not done, they’re just restarting, and maybe it won’t work but maybe it will, because hope is all they have after they’ve been broken and fixed all these times.

It’s too soon after Mary. John is too broken. Sherlock is too broken. It’s not the right moment.

But at the same time, it’s exactly the right moment, because everyone needs some to tell them it’s okay, that they’re not broken, and for Sherlock Holmes that has always been John Watson-

And maybe, Sherlock thinks giddily, for John Watson, that has always been Sherlock Holmes.

 

 

 


End file.
